Cisco allows Apple to bide its time over lawsuit

Cisco has graciously agreed to allow Apple more time to respond to the lawsuit …

The (not so) nasty skirmish is still going on between Apple and Cisco over the iPhone trademark, but the two companies have now come to an agreement that Apple will have more time to respond to the lawsuit, the companies said last night.

Apple had been in talks with Cisco over licensing the "iPhone" name for, well, the iPhone for a while before its announcement at Macworld, but the two companies had not come to an agreement by the time Macworld rolled around. The announcement happened as planned, however, and Cisco filed a lawsuit against Apple mere days later.

The lawsuit states that both companies using the name "iPhone" on their products could make them seem "deceptively and confusingly similar" to consumers. Apple called the lawsuit "silly" while Cisco has merely stated that they'd like Apple to respect the company's intellectual property.

Reports floating around the web that "everything might just be okay between Apple and Cisco!!!1!11oneone" may be jumping a little ahead of the gun, however. The two companies appear to be working together (at least on some level) to work out the details of this suit, sure. Best Friends Forever? Not so sure about that.